Construction of zeolite water softeners



Jan. 6, 1931. J. A. MoNTGoMERY .CONSTRUCTION OF ZEOLITE WATER SOFTENERSFiled Sept. 14. ,192B

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Patented dan. 9 lt 563m@ ARTHUR MQNTGGEIEBY, 0F DENVER, CGLORADCNSTRUGTXQN Die ZELTE WATER QFTENEES Application tiled September lo,192g. Serial Eo. 305,941.

My invention relates to the manner in which the supporting bed of gravelor other similar material is placed inthe bottom of .zeolitev watersofteners, thus improving the operating eliiciency or' such machines,more particularly to a ineens of eliminating the rupturing, blowing ordisarranging ol said supporting bed, and above which is placed theaeolite" .1 of zeolite water softe-ners, et either the open or closedtype, to place a gravel hed in the base of the softener. This gravel hedwithin the softener shell serves as a support or base on top of which isplaced the zeolite or water softening material. The gravel bed is placedeither on top of a perforated plate in the base of the softener, oraround and over a system orn pipes which plate or pipes serve as acollecting or distributing system :tor the water. 'lo date much troublehas come from the fact that when water is passing up through the gravelsupporting hed, the water has a tendency to channel and disarrange thegravel so that when water or brine is atterwards passed downward throughthe gravel bed, the zeolite lmineral also passes down through thisweakened portion of the gravel bed and on out of the softener. Manymethods have been tried for overcoming this serious trouble but theyhave proved unsuc-I cessful.

lt is common practice to use more than one size of gravel in thesupporting bed.- Large gravel is usually used for the bottom or lowestlayer of the supporting bed. On top of this layer of coarse gra-vel isthen placed finer gravel. It is customary to place from two to threelayers of finer gravel on top of the coarse gravel. rlhe top or finallayer of gravel is usually quite fine, running from one half inch anddown. IThis top layer of gravel is the layer that really holds thezeolite and prevents it from passing downward through the coarserlayers. lVhen this top layer has been broken it is easy for the mineralto pass down through the lower layers and ybe lost.

When a gravel hed has become disarranged and the hed has one or moreweak spots a channeling condition is produced when the t5 water ispassing either upward or downward through the machine. ln the case ofupward flow water softeners such a 'channel would greatly reduce thetotal softening capacity oi. the machine per each regeneration sincehard es wat-er would be delivered long before all of the aeolite mineralhas heen hrought into action. rthis is due to the fact that most of the.water would dow upward through the channel in the gravel'bed rather thanbe evenly e5 distributed through the entire volume of gravel hed andzeolite Amineral above the gravel bed.

rl`his invention refers particularly to a method of superimposingheavier gravel on 7o top ot' the linest layer of gravel that hashereto-ore heen used in the supporting hed or on top of the finest layerof gravel that might hereafter be used in t e supportinghed.. Theinvention also refers to any other granulated 'It substance that mightbe suhstituted tor gravel.'

ln the following detailed description of the invention reference is hadto the accompanying drawing which forms a part hereof. en Like numeralsrefer to like parts in all views of the drawings and throughout thedescrip-y tion.

Referring to the drawing, which is a vertical cross section view of azeolite water soies tener of the enclosed type, l indicates one of thewater connections and 2 the other water connection. 'ln the case of thedownward How machine l would he the inlet and 2 the outlet; whereas, inthe case of the up- 9o ward flow softener 2 would be 'the inlet and 1the outlet. These connections are placed at various places on lthe tank.

ln the base of the container is placed a collecting system 3 in thiscaseindicated by a e5 perforated plate. On this plate is placed thefirst layer of coarse gravel i usually three quarters of an inch indiameter or larger. On top of this first layer of gravel maybe placed asecond layer of smaller gravel indilos cated by 5. On top of this secondlayer of gravel is placed the line gravel 6 which serves as the realsupporting bed for the softening mineral 9. It is this layer of gravel 6which 6 has become disarrangedI in the passt and allowed the mineral toleak out of the softener downward, or in the case of upward flow andupward salting, has caused a channeling through the mineral bed. Toiprevent this. m I- propose to weigh down the ne layer of gravel 6 bysuperimposing on` the fine gravel, one or more layers of coarser gravelor by the use of any other granulated material which would serve thesame purpose. To obtain the best results, I recommend that two layers ofgravel be placed upon the layer of fine gravel 6. The size of the gravelin layer 7 can very well be the same as is used in layer 5 and thegravel in layer 8 can be the same as is used in layer 4.

The two upper layers of gravel 7 and 8 will not prevent the softeningmineral from reaching the real supporting bed 6 but by holding the finegravel in layer 6 in place with the superimposed layers of coarsergravel, it

will not be possible to produce a blown or disarranged bed in layer 6,and thus permit the mineral to leak downward out of the machine 0r toproduce a channel in the upward flow type of softener. v

This method of holding the real supporting layer 6 of gravel in place,by means of the superimposed layers of one or more layers of coarsegravel might easily be accomplished by using materials other than gravelon top of layer 6 and my invention is not confined to the use of gravelbut includes any other granulated material that might be used instead ofgravel.

While a specific form of the improvement has been described andillustrated herein, it

. is desired to be understood that the same may be varied, within thescope of the appended claims, without departing from the spirit of theinvention. n

What I claim is:

s l. In a zeolite water softener of the type having a bed ofnon-buoyant, granular material for supporting said zeolite, means for 5opreventing blowing of said bed comprising: a layer of relativelynon-buoyant, granular 4 material relatively coarser than the granularmaterial in said bed covering the entire top thereof.

2. In a zeolite water softening tank of the type described having a bed.of granular material for supporting said zeolite, comprising a layer ofcoarse gravel in the bottom of said tank, a layer of line gravel abovesaidV coarse. gravel, and a layer of non-buoyant granular materialrelatively coarser than said line gravel covering the entire top of saidbed.

e JOHN ARTHUR MONTGOMERY.

